The real manuals.
WARDOGS models a helicopter, and helicopters have a century of literature behind them. These are the actual documents — the FAA handbook the whole subject rests on, two flight manuals for aircraft you could go and fly tomorrow, and the radio discipline that goes with them. None of it mentions the game. All of it explains it.
8 books · 1,128 pages · free to read
Federal Aviation AdministrationHelicopter Flying HandbookFAA-H-8083-21BThe book everything else on this site is downstream of. Aerodynamics, the four controls, every basic maneuver and every way they go wrong — written for people who will be held responsible for getting it right.203 pages171 MB2019Public domain
Federal Aviation AdministrationRotorcraft Flying HandbookThe 2019 handbook's predecessor, and a tenth of the size. It covers gyroplanes as well as helicopters, and its illustrations of the rotor system are the clearest of the two.207 pages16.7 MB2000Public domain
Pooleys Air PresentationsPre-Flight Briefing (Helicopters)Student Pilot's Work BookWhat an instructor says to a student before each lesson, written down: one briefing per exercise, in the order a real syllabus teaches them. The closest thing here to being taught rather than told.116 pages56.0 MB
Robinson Helicopter CompanyR22 Pilot's Operating HandbookRTR 061 · FAA-approved Rotorcraft Flight ManualAn actual flight manual for an actual aircraft — limits, weight and balance, performance charts, and the emergency procedures in the order you would need them. This is what the numbers look like when they are binding.200 pages1.3 MB
Robinson Helicopter CompanyR44 Pilot's Operating HandbookRTR 461 · FAA-approved Rotorcraft Flight ManualThe same document for the bigger Robinson. Read alongside the R22's and the differences tell you what more power and more mass actually change about flying the thing.248 pages1.7 MB
International Civil Aviation OrganizationManual of RadiotelephonyDoc 9432 AN/925 · fourth editionHow aircraft talk on the radio, and why it is phrased that way: standard phraseology, the phonetic alphabet, and the discipline of saying only what is needed. Directly useful to anyone flying with a crew.102 pages2.2 MB2007
Helicopter Association InternationalFly Neighborly GuideA short guide to where a helicopter's noise comes from and how a pilot changes it — blade-vortex interaction, approach angles, and why the sound of an aircraft depends on how it is flown.36 pages1.3 MB
Dekelia Aero ClubR22 External CheckA photographic walk-around of an R22: every item on the pre-flight inspection, in order, shown on the aircraft rather than described. Sixteen pages, and the fastest of these to read.16 pages2.1 MB2012